Apple is among more than a dozen U.S. companies which during a conference call on Tuesday warned the Trump administration about the potential ramifications of banning WeChat from their platforms.
John D. McKinnon and Lingling Wei for The Wall Street Journal:
U.S. companies whose fortunes are linked to China are pushing back against the Trump administration’s plans to restrict business transactions involving the WeChat app from Tencent, saying it could undermine their competitiveness in the world’s second-biggest economy.
More than a dozen major U.S. multinational companies raised concerns in a call with White House officials Tuesday about the potentially broad scope and impact of Mr. Trump’s executive order targeting WeChat, set to take effect late next month.
“For those who don’t live in China, they don’t understand how vast the implications are if American companies aren’t allowed to use it,” said Craig Allen, president of the U.S.-China Business Council. “They are going to be held at a severe disadvantage to every competitor,” he added.
Trump wants to ban apps and services that are based in China, which is the case of ByteDance’s TikTok and Tencent’s WeChat. He signed an executive order on Thursday that bans not only these two apps in the US, but also any transactions with its parent companies […] Both orders will take effect in 45 days.
MacDailyNews Take: Trump’s executive order banning WeChat (and TikTok) goes into effect on September 20th, but there are many outstanding questions and a lot could happen before we start worrying about iPhone sales in China.